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MEXICO CITY , Mexico - It was a symbol of the Mexico City landscape, zooming, honking and fuming in the mega-capital's infamously dense traffic, but the beloved Volkswagen Beetle is now all but extinct, a victim of pollution campaigns.

A few "vochos", as the Beetle is known in Mexico, can still be seen oin the city's chaotic streets while so-called "Vochomania" clubs of collectors try to keep it alive but the once ubiquitous white and green - later red and gold - Beetle taxis that clogged boulevards are gone from the metropolis, home to 20-million people and four-million cars.

LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE BEETLE

Rodrigo Diaz, an urban planning consultant who writes a blog on transport issue's said: "We could have thought about keeping a few in the historic centre to preserve the symbol, but it wasn't meant to be."

The unceremonious demise of the vocho is surprising for a country that has had a long love-affair with the Beetle.

The "people's car" born in Germany in the politically charged 1930's arrived in Mexico in 1954, where it became an instant hit.

'VOCHOS': Old Volkswagen Beetles or 'vochos' as they are known in Mexico, stand in an impound lot in Mexico City. Image: AFP/Omar Torres

QUEEN OF HOLLYWOOD

While the Bug was adored in Mexico, its charm won over Hollywood, where it was immortalised as "Herbie" in a Disney film series about the No.53 race car with a big heart.

In 1980, the production took the Beetle to Mexico in "Herbie Goes Bananas", in which the intelligent car faces off with a bull in an arena, dismantles a network of smugglers of Aztec artifacts and accelerates like a F1 car.

But after the era of the oil crisis, the Beetle began to lose its charm. It was suddenly seen as too polluting, too noisy and too uncomfortable.

MET ITS DEMISE IN 2003

The Beetle taxis were repainted in white and green in an attempt to refurbish their tarnished image. The colours were later changed to red and gold, but the new body paint was not enough as passengers preferred newer, safer and more comfortable rides.

In 2012 taxi drivers were offered $1 000 or close to R12 000 by the Mexican goverment towards purchasing new cabs. The remaining vochos were gradually sent to junkyards.

The capital's taxis are now four-door vehicles with a rear trunk, like in most major world cities.

Beetle aficionados can still find a few taxi-vochos but they have to venture into tourist towns such as Taxco, where they are painted red, or Acapulco, where they are white and blue.

Transport blogger Diaz again: "Unlike London with its double-decker buses, San Francisco and Lisbon with their cable cars, or Valparaiso with its funicular, Mexico didn't declare this vehicle a part of its historic heritage, it's a shame."

At least one white and green taxi can still be seen: in a museum in Berlin. It was sent by Mexico City in 2008 as a gift, in a sort of return-to-sender gesture after a 50-year love affair.

NO MORE BEETLE JUICE: The Mexican government paid taxi drivers the equivalent of R12 000 to scrap their VW Beetles. Image: AFP / Omar Torres

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